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Super Bowl 2014: All (legal) bets are off in NJ

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Despite the efforts of Gov. Chris Christie and state lawmakers, it remains illegal for casinos and horse tracks to run sports bookmaking operations. Last year in Nevada - one of four states where sports wagering is legal - $99 million was wagered on the Super Bowl. The Mirage Resort Race and Sports Book in Las Vegas is shown in this 2010 photo.
(Glenn Pinkerton/Las Vegas News Bureau via Getty Images)

ATLANTIC CITY — Here’s a safe bet: Come game time today, Atlantic City’s cavernous gambling halls will fall eerily silent. Flashing slot machines will beg the stale casino air for attention. Roulette wheels will seem to freeze in time.

Off the gamblers will go, scurrying to find a spot to watch the first Super Bowl ever played in New Jersey.

Despite the efforts of Gov. Chris Christie and state lawmakers, it remains illegal for casinos and horse tracks to run sports bookmaking operations. Of course, that hardly means that millions of dollars in bets won’t be placed.

"This is the big game," said Koleman Strumpf, a business economics professor at the University of Kansas who examined the inner workings of a gambling ring in Brooklyn. "Basically, anyone who’s running an illegal sports bookmaking operation — they’re making a lot of money right now taking bets on this."

Current and former law enforcement officials say millions of dollars will be wagered illegally in New Jersey as the Seattle Seahawks face the Denver Broncos in the Meadowlands. Much of it will be funneled to overseas bookmaking operations as gamblers bet over the internet, while any wager made with a local bookie is virtually certain to pass through the hands of organized crime.

That makes this National Football League extravaganza in New Jersey a bit of an odd pairing, what with Christie and the lawmakers seeking to legalize sports betting in hopes of boosting the struggling casinos and horse tracks while removing organized crime from the cut.

For its part, the NFL — which is suing the state to stop it from making betting legal — insists that gambling belongs nowhere near organized athletic events. So far, the professional sports leagues, along with the NCAA, have prevailed in federal court, saying the betting in New Jersey would "irreparably" harm professional and amateur sports. The two sides may soon face off again, with New Jersey preparing to appeal its case to the U.S. Supreme Court next month.

To state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a leading supporter of legalizing sports betting, nothing smacks more of a "blown opportunity." He pointed out that last year in Nevada — one of four states where sports wagering is legal — $99 million was wagered on the Super Bowl, according to the state’s Gaming Control Board.

To state Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union), a leading supporter of legalizing sports betting, nothing smacks more of a "blown opportunity." He pointed out that last year in Nevada — one of four states where sports wagering is legal — $99 million was wagered on the Super Bowl, according to the state's Gaming Control Board. Lesniak is shown in this October 2012 file photo.Tony Kurdzuk/The Star-Ledger

"We’re missing out and Nevada and organized crime are reaping the benefits," Lesniak said. "There will be cheering and packed crowds in Las Vegas and empty rooms throughout Atlantic City."

Brian McCarthy, a spokesman for the NFL, declined to comment.

In the meantime, the betting will flourish underground and — perhaps to a larger extent — in the open. It’s hard to find an office in the state where someone isn’t running a pool, putting colleagues’ names down on a few squares.

Indeed, experts say betting is woven into the fabric of American life. Even U.S. Supreme Court justices have enjoyed a good game of poker, and conducted their own pool on the 1992 presidential election.

Yet for some the notion of sports betting conjures up images of mobsters and smoke-filled wire rooms, and of wise guys who say they’ll break a guy’s leg if he doesn’t pay up. To some extent, that’s been reality, and even today many bookies are either involved with organized crime or are influenced by it, Peter Harvey, a former New Jersey attorney general, said in an interview.

"You really have to be mindful of the fact that people who run sophisticated gambling operations also have enforcement mechanisms for when someone bets and doesn’t have the money when they lose," Harvey said.

The emergence of the internet has meant betting that used to be done in person — with envelopes of cash exchanged — is now done largely on the web. It can be risky — with the possibility of having money or identities stolen — but many do it.

Vic Dante, 52, a trumpet player from Bloomfield, has been betting on the horses for three decades, though he says he avoids other sports. But not when the Super Bowl comes around, in which case he says he’ll put several hundred dollars down on Denver, using an offshore online betting account.

"I’ve been lucky," Dante said, sitting in an off-track-betting parlor in Woodbridge one recent afternoon. "I know a few guys who got screwed."

What the average bettor need not worry about is arrest. Police care little about small-time betting and, in fact, it’s not even illegal to place a bet in New Jersey — just to promote gambling or to accept bets.

Even if there won't be legal betting on the Super Bowl at these casinos in Atlantic City, there will be plenty putting a whole lot on the line. The betting will flourish underground and — perhaps to a larger extent — in the open. It's hard to find an office in the state where someone isn't running a pool, putting colleagues names down on a few squares.Andrew Mills/The Star-Ledger)

"Illegal gambling is right with illegal parking," said I. Nelson Rose, a professor at Whittier Law School in Southern California, who writes about gambling on his blog, gamblingandthelaw.com. "Nobody cares about it — unless it interferes with your life."

What can be a concern is addiction, and experts say that for a handful of bettors, the rush of gambling can be too much to contain.

"It’s everywhere you go," said Donald Weinbaum, executive director of the Council on Compulsive Gambling of New Jersey. "And it’s not just the office bet, the bet with friends. Now, you turn on the news — it’s all Super Bowl. You open up the paper, it’s Super Bowl. It’s on the radio."

Arnie Wexler, who once headed the council, said he always saw a sharp jump in calls after the big game. Wexler recalled one of the more telling episodes he encountered when he received a call as the Super Bowl was starting in 1987, when the Giants defeated the Broncos.

"The guy says to me, ‘I’m in big trouble,’" Wexler recalled. "I said, ‘What happened?’ He said, ‘I bet on the coin flip.’ The guy said he couldn’t stand the pressure of waiting three hours for a result so he bet on the coin flip."